Lee Deification of Robert E Lee

[jgoodguy]

Horse hockey.

Please show where they complained about an intrusive government in their Declarations of Causes. I can see where they complained the government wasn't intrusive enough--not where it was intrusive.

Why should they? Wanting their freedom from an intrusive government would mean something!

Stay on topic, please.

 

[C. Kelp]

You did say supposedly and then put out something not true.

wrong. if you go back to my first comment concerning forrest i said something and then said supposedly . if you read the whole comment it has nothing to do with my point. i know the forrest story, and again that is for another thread, but christianity as it concerns lee and his deification, is not.
what indicates that lee was beyond reproach in his religious beliefs vs his actions in life? what did lee do to be acclaimed such a great christian ?
i think when we say deification what we are really thinking is something like sainthood. this may come from lee's outward show of devotion and "miracles" performed in the field. i don't know. why was lee anymore saintly than anybody else (except of course forrest ((humor)) ) ?

 

[diane]

That's blasphemy in some circles!

We still have penitent shirts available!

 

[cash]

…from James McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Battle Cry of Freedom…

"Thus when secessionists protested that they were acting to preserve traditional rights and values, they were correct. They fought to protect their constitutional liberties against the perceived northern threat to overthrow them.

"The South's concept of republicanism had not changed in three-quarters of a century; the North's had. With complete sincerity the South fought to preserve its version of the republic of the founding fathers---a government of limited powers that protected the rights of property, and whose constituency comprised an independent gentry and yeomanry of the white race undisturbed by large cities, heartless factories, restless free workers, and class conflict.

"The accession to power of the Republican party, with its ideology of competitive, egalitarian, free labor capitalism, was a signal to the South [that] the northern majority had turned irrevocably toward this frightening, revolutionary future."

If we read what McPherson wrote in context we see he was talking about a slave-labor based, agrarian economy as what was endangered. McPherson was saying southerners wanted to stay rooted in the past and didn't want to progress into the future. Here's what he had to say just prior to the quotation you excerpted: "From a broader perspective it may have been the North that was exceptional and unique before the Civil War. The South more closely resembled a majority of the societies of the world than did the rapidly changing North during the antebellum generation. Despite the abolition of legal slavery or serfdom throughout much of the western hemisphere and western Europe, most of the world--like the South--had an unfree or quasi-free labor force. Most societies in the world remained predominantly rural, agricultural, and labor-intensive; most, including even several European countries, had illiteracy rates as high or higher than the South's 45 percent; most like the South remained bound by traditional values and networks of family, kinship, hierarchy, and patriarchy. The North--along with a few countries of northwestern Europe--hurtled forward eagerly toward a future of industrial capitalism that many southerners found distasteful if not frightening; the South remained proudly and even defiantly rooted in the past before 1861." [James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, p. 860]

By 1860, the South had lost all political power, and they knew it.

Baloney. That claim is not supported by what McPherson wrote.

 

[cash]

When a political party gets their candidate (Lincoln) the electoral college votes needed while only garnering in the process 39% of the popular vote and not receiving a single popular vote from 10 states (out of the 33 states nationwide) that comprise one section of the country, that is indeed loss of all political power for that section of the country.

A good civics textbook will show the US Government is made up of more than the President, and political power is spread through all the branches of the government. I suggest reading up on American government to prevent making such silly sweeping claims in the future.

 

[FarawayFriend]

i'm curious. does anyone know of monuments to lee in union states , except for battlefields and border states?

Maybe this thread has some

http://civilwartalk.com/threads/things-named-for-robert-e-lee.94513/

 

[C. Kelp]

maybe i'm a latent neo-confederate and I"M the one who is all conflicted, and i take it out on lee.

 

[18thVirginia]

At the risk of being really politically incorrect for this forum, perhaps some of the "deification" of Robert E. Lee was not just by those wishing to elevate him as part of Lost Causism, but by historians, who often seem willing to overlook any flaws in whomever they've cast as hero.

I remember a WWII soldier, one who was very well-respected, saying about a historian's near adulation of an officer under whom he'd served, "Well, he was a good officer, but he wasn't a god."

 

[jgoodguy]

If we read what McPherson wrote in context we see he was talking about a slave-labor based, agrarian economy as what was endangered. McPherson was saying southerners wanted to stay rooted in the past and didn't want to progress into the future. Here's what he had to say just prior to the quotation you excerpted: "From a broader perspective it may have been the North that was exceptional and unique before the Civil War. The South more closely resembled a majority of the societies of the world than did the rapidly changing North during the antebellum generation. Despite the abolition of legal slavery or serfdom throughout much of the western hemisphere and western Europe, most of the world--like the South--had an unfree or quasi-free labor force. Most societies in the world remained predominantly rural, agricultural, and labor-intensive; most, including even several European countries, had illiteracy rates as high or higher than the South's 45 percent; most like the South remained bound by traditional values and networks of family, kinship, hierarchy, and patriarchy. The North--along with a few countries of northwestern Europe--hurtled forward eagerly toward a future of industrial capitalism that many southerners found distasteful if not frightening; the South remained proudly and even defiantly rooted in the past before 1861." [James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, p. 860]



Baloney. That claim is not supported by what McPherson wrote.

Good summary.

 

[jgoodguy]

A good civics textbook will show the US Government is made up of more than the President, and political power is spread through all the branches of the government. I suggest reading up on American government to prevent making such silly sweeping claims in the future.

Good points, but politeness is valued as much as facts here on CWT and polite advocates seem to get their point across faster too.

 

[Sbc]

John Brown did not levy war against the United States. Try again.

He led an attack again a federal armory causing a half dozen deaths; attempting to steal firearms owned by said government. Not in least bit treasonous.

 

[Sbc]

hannibal died a loser

modern day rommel-fans are normally fans of his greatest fan, too which kinda scraps all remaining chances (there weren't many, anyway) of deification. them brits are much more in rommel-adoration than we are

Hannibal committed suicide

 

[Schwallanscher]

Hannibal committed suicide

still a loser - he was on the run from roman influence and choose suicide to avoid being handed over on a silver platter

 

[Andersonh1]

Perhaps but they'd still have been dependent on northern businesses for all the services necessary to get their product to foreign buyers (just as they already were). To simply sidestep the north they'd have had to build more railroads, develop ports, build a banking and insurance industry with sufficient capitalization, develop a trans-Atlantic shipping industry, blah blah blah.

I think they were industrious enough to have done this, or at least to have made a good attempt. The Confederacy went a long way with just a little to work with during wartime, so I suspect they'd have done well in peacetime also.

 

[Andersonh1]

It is a very odd quirk of human nature that seeks to find heroes, and then seeks to destroy their heroes' credibility by finding naughtiness in their past. It is very curious, as if we cannot accept that someone can looked up to or admired, but has to be destroyed because they were not perfect.

Indeed and well said. I can't quite put my finger on it precisely but it has something to do with the general feeling that anybody with any sort of power - certainly any authority figures but also could just be a successful entertainer - is somehow undeserving and taking advantage of the average person so as to lord it over us or get rich off us and we need to pop their bubbles as some kind of psychological defense. We've just become jaded as a result of so much obvious corruption and manipulation. At the same time we could really use a hero or three but somehow I just don't see how anybody can pass the test these days. Popping those bubbles is now a profession and the obsession of thousands of internet monsters. And they aren't content with today's potential players; they've got to go back and vilify all the heroes of yesteryear too. Very sad.

I agree with both of you. The mindset you describe is the type that will look at men like George Washington and see "slaveowner" to the exclusion of all else. I think Lee has certainly fallen victim to the same modern day way of thinking that says we aren't allowed to look at the broad range of a man or woman's life and judge them accordingly. Rather we have to find one objectionable thing and that becomes the totality of who that person was. And it's very odd.... the culture used to criticize those who looked at things in black and white, and now things have gone 180 degrees in the other direction. Shades of gray are not allowed.

I think it's not so much that Lee is deified, it's that he's admired, and people who have reduced him in their minds to nothing more than "traitor", "slaveowner" or whatever cannot understand that admiration. So they decide that people are turning him into a god and worshiping rather than thinking, because any thinking person would see Lee the way they do.

 

[Sbc]

still a loser - he was on the run from roman influence and choose suicide to avoid being handed over on a silver platter

Did not say he did not lose to the Romans

 

[mkyzzzrdet]

I think some people do hold Lee in the neighborhood of a god of some sort but, curiously, Forrest-themed tourist items seem to be starting to outsell Lee-themed tourist items. Forrest was decidedly not a god! I don't know what to make of that particular trend.

Maybe a bit off thread, BUT -- If I were to say "Forrest was not a demon", then I could be accused of racism, at least by a whole lot of folks in the mentality of today!.

 

[Martini-Henry]

Maybe a bit off thread, BUT -- If I were to say "Forrest was not a demon", then I could be accused of racism, at least by a whole lot of folks in the mentality of today!.

I think that many of us rush to a knee-jerk reaction, judging figures from the past from our own modern, cultural & ethical standpoints. It makes for an awkward & often conflicting - dare I say confusing picture.

 

[C. Kelp]

I think that many of us rush to a knee-jerk reaction, judging figures from the past from our own modern, cultural & ethical standpoints. It makes for an awkward & often conflicting - dare I say confusing picture.

the confederacy and it's figures were being judged by contemporaries . that is the whole point of the war. it is not a knee-jerk reaction but has been instilled in us for 150 yrs. it has had a huge influence on our own modern, cultural, and ethical standpoints. lee was accorded some sort of divinity from the moment he went into the ground and it was done intentionally and successfully. that is not to say that lee wanted it that way and i am learning more about lee's own feelings.

 

[Rebforever]

the confederacy and it's figures were being judged by contemporaries . that is the whole point of the war. it is not a knee-jerk reaction but has been instilled in us for 150 yrs. it has had a huge influence on our own modern, cultural, and ethical standpoints. lee was accorded some sort of divinity from the moment he went into the ground and it was done intentionally and successfully. that is not to say that lee wanted it that way and i am learning more about lee's own feelings.

Source, please.